Tools As Art: The Hechinger Collection

“A worker may be the hammer’s master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is meant to be handled, while the user of the tool can only have an approximate idea.”

– Milan Kundera

“[Tools] have a history. In many of the religious panels of the Renaissance, you see the same tools as carpenters use today. They haven’t changed at all since then, so they’ve become a symbol of order and aspiration to me.”

— Jacob Lawrence

The Hechinger Collection celebrates the ubiquity of tools in our lives with art that magically transforms utilitarian objects into fanciful works of beauty, surprise and wit.

Unprecedented in its scope and singular appeal, Tools As Art explores the unsung elegance of tools with sixty-five highlights from the unique holdings of hardware pioneer John Hechinger. From a painting of a giant hammer pulling out a misplaced nail to a full-scale stepladder made entirely of paper, this landmark exhibition covers an astonishing range of media, materials, and themes, all of which invite us to look at everyday objects with new eyes. Some of them celebrate the quotidian grace of tools as instruments of creation that are beautiful in themselves; others transfigure the familiar with abstract or fanciful distortions, assemblages, or collages, melding tools into animal forms or landscapes or highlighting their tragic anomaly in a technological age.

The exhibition showcases emerging talent as well as renowned artists and photographers such as Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Estes, Wayne Thiebaud, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and William Eggleston. All share a deep affinity for everyday things, and it is this quality that makes their work so evocative.

Purchase the 92-page exhibition catalogue here

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